Belkin diving into the 802.11ac wireless networking market

By Gene Ryan Briones on 05/10/2012 20:05 PDT

Computer hardware manufacturer Belkin has announced its plans to become one of the first to sell a line of wireless dual-band routers supporting the new 802.11ac wireless networking standard. In case you didn’t know, 802.11ac is a wireless computer networking standard of 802.11 that is currently under development. Technically, 802.11ac provides high throughput Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) on the 5 GHz band. The IEEE expects the 802.11ac standard to be widely used by 2015. Among the first to meddle with 802.11ac are Netgear and Quantenna. Now Belkin is hopping in with its dual-band routers featuring Broadcom’s fifth generation (5G Wi-Fi) 802.11ac chips that allow speeds up to three times faster than the existing 802.11n technology. According to the press release, 802.11ac is ideal for smartphones and tablets because it enables faster web downloads and file syncing with less drain on battery life.

Furthermore, 802.11ac is also more powerful than its preceding 802.11n standard. It can extend your home network range and give you greater throughput and more reliable coverage at greater distances, the press release said. Mike Chen, Senior Director of Networking at Belkin, commented that 802.11ac technology will provide the wireless networking backbone needed to reliably handle the increasing amount of mobile devices and streaming content in today’s home networks. “We are excited to partner with Broadcom to bring cutting-edge Wi-Fi products to market this summer that not only provide great speed and coverage, but also enhance the online streaming experience for videos, movies, and music throughout the home,” Chen added.